FCJ-157 Still ‘Searching for Safety Online’: collective strategies and discursive resistance to trolling and harassment in a feminist network

This paper examines the discursive responses that participants in a network of feminist blogs developed to handle trolling in their community. Internet communities develop strategies to deal with trolls in their networks. In particular, participants provide instructions and guidance to support each other to deal with trolls and harassment, and engage in intra-community discussion about the significance or insignificance of trolls. My paper explores the practices that feminist bloggers engage in to resist silencing practices, and the ways in which the silencing of female voices does not work in these contexts. I argue that trolling and discursive responses to trolls are collectively developed and enforced. Using a case study from my research into Australian feminist blogging networks, I argue that these networks have developed particular collective responses to trolls.